Carol was last seen waiting for a bus outside the Crown Motel in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at 3:35 p.m. on May 31, 1958.
She was going to take a bus the nearby naval air technical training center where her husband worked; they were going to go to Norman, Oklahoma together to look for an apartment. She never got on the bus and has never been heard from again.
Carol staying in the Crown Motel with her husband, 18-year-old Dennis E. Batterman. They grew up in Westchester, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and were high school sweethearts who married just two weeks prior to her disappearance. Carol wrote a letter to her parents the night before she disappeared, saying she was happy in her marriage. She left her luggage, clothing, makeup, jewellery and $100 in cash behind in their motel room, but she may have been carrying up to $35 in cash at the time of her disappearance.
A witness reported seeing a grey pickup truck, possibly a 1953 Ford, stop at the curb near Carol shortly before she disappeared. The witness saw Carol standing beside the open door of the truck, talking to the driver, who was described as a 40-year-old male, about six feet tall with a slender build. He wore khaki clothes and a large Western-type straw hat.
The witness got distracted for a moment and when he looked again, both Carol and the truck were gone. It’s unclear whether this truck had anything to do with her disappearance; no one actually saw Carol get into it.
Authorities believe Carol was taken against her will, and Dennis is not considered a suspect in her disappearance. When he was interviewed by a newspaper in 1961, Dennis said he was still hoping Carol might return and they could begin their life together. Her case remains unsolved.
Information courtesy of The Charley Project.
